The Poll: What's the Funniest Comic Around?

Thanks to you all, 'Riffs has received more than 100 suggestions since last week. Now, it's time to start whittling 'em down.

Sure, "funny" is as subjective as a "Judge Parker" story is long. (And "funny," honestly, is only one criterion to judge a comic.) But that's the joy of it -- trying to find a strip in a mass-market industry that brilliantly appeals across many types of audience.

So based on your 15 most-mentioned candidates last week, let the polling begin.

Cul-de-sac is a strip that is always clever and insightful, more than laugh-out-loud funny. ("Clever" works too, of course, but I would put that strip into a separate category from the true "gag" strips.) Of the remainder, many of these strips are often funny, and several of them are in fact usually funny. Some of them are indeed **very** funny - when they are funny at all - but they are inconsistent. I would put Pearls into that category; when it's on-mark, it's unbeatable, but too often it falls back on "Boy, aren't those crocs stupid!" humor that gets as tedious as "Wow, that Garfield sure is lazy and fat!". Dilbert can cut to the bone, but it too can often miss the mark widely. Get Fuzzy is egregious that way; sometimes the wordplay is inspired (as the artwork always is), but sometimes it's just strained. I therefore voted for Brewster Rockitt, since it has a very high percentage of funny strips, and the funniest among them are winners indeed.

I agree with HallieRoseC.. "Swine" is terible, mean and depressing. My husband loves Paranha Club, and every now and then, he will suggest I read it...and he will be right, it is funny funny that day. "Swine" has no such days....period.

Whoa - what happened with the votes since last night. There were a couple of hundred votes and Pearls before Swine had a pretty consistent 29% and Cul de Sac had 13%. Now Pearls drops to 16%, Cul de Sac is 29% and Pooch Cafe (which wasn't even in the running if I remember) is 23%!